A group of over 600 scuba divers last month broke the world record for an underwater cleanup, retrieving over 9,000 items of marine debris.
The 15th annual Save Deerfield Beach cleanup event was orchestrated by diving operator Dixie Divers in collaboration with the Woman’s Club of Deerfield Beach. The event drew 633 divers from the United States, Europe and South America, breaking the previous record of 614 cleaning divers set in 2015 in Egypt’s Red Sea.
During the event 544 kilograms of trash was removed from the Deerfield Beach Pier by scuba diving participants, the majority of which consisted of discarded fishing gear such as lines, nets and weights. The city of Deerfield Beach, Florida has committed to handling the recycling and responsible disposal of all debris retrieved.
The results of the cleanup will be recorded by ocean conservation group Project AWARE as part of its Dive Against Debris program, which aims to give scuba divers the motivation to remove marine debris from the seafloor and report data on the types, quantities and locations of materials collected. To date, the citizen science program has attracted over 50,000 contributing divers from 114 countries.
A number of campaigns and events have highlighted the plight of the world’s oceans in 2019, including World Ocean’s Day in early June.
Positive Action
- Ensure you keep your waste out of our beautiful Australian marine environment by disposing of it responsibly and recycling where possible. For information on recycling in your local area, visit RecyclingNearYou.
- Check out some of the organisations cleaning up Australia’s beaches and waterways, including Clean Up Australia and Take 3 for the Sea.
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Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.